Of All The Tangled Webs We Weave
by KissxTemptationx
Summary: A King set out to destroy Jareth and the Seelie Court plays Sarah's blooming darkness to his advantage... and transforms her into Jareth's enemy. Her destruction will start a war only Jareth can stop. J/S/OC
1. A Life Long Missed Without Her Dreams

**This is all an experiment that came to mind one day. I've been wanting badly to write Labyrinth fanfiction for awhile now, but was too intimidated of the fantastic writers out in that archive presently. This idea came to me through a few youtube videos of the famous J/S pairing, and I had to write it down. I always wondered what would happen if, instead of Sarah accidentally being sent back to the Underground under unknown terms or either willingly going back to save Jareth, she came back for the opposite. What if she had lost all things once held dear to her, if she had been inwardly wounded from this loss, and eventually was brought to corruption against the Underground. This is the experiment. Read, review, enjoy! Poetry credit goes to Hopkins; I own none of the characters of the Labyrinth, but I do own Oriyn and future characters created from my mind.**

_Ah! As the heart grows older  
It will come to such sights colder  
By and by, nor spare a sigh  
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;  
And yet you will weep and know why. –Hopkins_

A disturbing hush spread its deceitful wings, stretching and unfurling across the darkened room. Voices whispering in low distortion and varied by several languages of the Underground flitted through the atmosphere of excitement that grew progressively into a dull roar. The time when all would change drew nearer. The flaming candles quickly lost their vigor and strength by each second, the glow illuminating diversely grotesque creatures alike now casting their faces into the shadows. He was coming: the Unseelie King. Boots out of audible hearing over a minute ago now echoed the halls outside the doors of the circular room. All chatter, all talk of the imminent darkness forthcoming the Underground was quieted… for now. He stormed in like a wildfire blazing violently in the rain—unstoppable and unable to be put out unless gripped at its vital source. Following in pursuit was the King's messenger, commonly prepared to announce the suffocating presence of their King consuming all trace of oxygen in the room.

"His Majesty, Lord of the Unseelie, High King of the Fallen, Oriyn." All rose to their highest heights, bowing until they either lost balance or reached the base of their ankles.

"Everyone may be seated," the husky tenor of Oriyn's voice barreled off the walls. He seated himself into a throne woven of rose vines and fallen, contorted tree limbs of the blackest ebony, watching in satisfaction as his court followed command and sank to half of their heights. In exchange, he rose to his full height for the fateful conversation, waving a hand in a circular direction to ignite all flames extinguished with his entrance.

Upon first laying sight on the Unseelie King, one would have a glimpse at the creature beneath the surface of such a beautiful face. Those viewing would be warned at that first gaze of his treachery and lies—lies that built his kingdom block-by-block and limb-by-limb. But of that momentary foretaste, the outcast Fae trickery is gone, the creature starving for battle behind lidded eyes is gone. Oriyn is seen primarily as the devil is seen by naïve souls: handsome and tempting in his wiles of unspoken pleasure and even lustier dreams. To his subjects, he is deemed frightening, creatures always plagued with the threat of death upon disobeying. In this present situation, both demeanors chose to walk hand-in-hand.

Every goblin, dwarf, troll, wicked Fae, and other lost creatures alike fell into Oriyn's silence. The King's eyes radiated an unearthly purple, tips of his hair standing at attention and outwardly blending into the blackness of the heavily-incensed room. The time was now to act. To corrupt the one precious frailty that could bring down the heir to the Seelie throne and his Kingdom of Illusions.

Sarah. Precious Sarah.

Not so precious and magic-loving now, he thought with a victorious smirk.

"For years we have all been wandering aimlessly outside the Seelie Court. More than half of our wars have left our population severed. But not now. Not anymore." Oriyn growled. His fist clenched so tight that all color was vacant in his skin and began to pace. A conquering smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "We have watched for years to find a crack in the wall, a born destroyer we could use to crumble that wall and seize the Seelie Kingdom for ourselves. Half a decade ago, a dreamer of the Aboveground wished her brother to the Goblin King." An unrestrained awe settled over his listeners, for they knew as well as he did of that prophecy. "_Jareth_ had fallen in love with this girl as it had been foretold five centuries ago. She fought to retrieve her brother, and won. And the heir to becoming High King of the Seelie throne was completely smitten, that he offered her own dreams in exchange.

"She crushed them without knowing the consequences." Pointed teeth surfaced through Oriyn's lips, a vicious smile imminent. "This is where we come to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, and_ blacken_ them. We wouldn't want the future High Queen to ascend her title, now would we?"

* * *

Preoccupation was only a momentary skill acquired in order to maintain a special type of sanity for offensive thoughts. This skill had been acquired by the time Sarah reached her senior year of high school, and at times like these, preoccupation came secondary as a blanketing cover to past memories. Was she willing to take down that mask? No. She continued to scrub away at these influential memories that forever remain unclean—all dreams that once seemed attainable and within her own grasping reach.

It's been five years now and Sarah was twenty, the age of crossroads. Stardom had never befallen her as she hoped it would, no matter the effort made to achieve it. College was of her own fortune: she studied hard to accept that benefit and it was well-received. Acting, however, lost its spark the second she left the Underground and its Goblin King behind.

The Goblin King. _Jareth_, Sarah thought.

She proceeded to clean the plates once holding their afternoon lunch on Karen's request, pushing away unprecedented thoughts perturbing her concentration. Summer had spun her bright webs around Sarah's life again—needless to say no school, responsibility, or social obligations to live up to in the world she felt she had no place in. Her only duties required watching over a spontaneous Toby when her stepmother and father had nights out. This, she now came to understand what she had not five years ago. Life gave no breaks; no easy ways past work or parenting that teenagers came to believe existed. When an occasion arrived for any type of break on strenuous working hours, it was most likely seized when offered. The Labyrinth helped her understand this: work to keep what you have alive, because chances are, you won't have it in the future.

Like her dreams.

Tears came to the surface then, but she refused to let them escape her moist eyes. _Keep working, and you will forget._. The dreams offered to her at that tender age, she realized, were not supposed to be shattered. She had always thought they were childish fantasies contained inside the crystal, not all of the lifelong achievements she could have held onto, if she accepted his offer. He didn't want her to keep searching for thin air, he wanted her to clutch to the possible that is now impossible. Sarah slammed the roughened sponge on the counter in familiar grief. She turned everything away selfishly and childishly. If only he could understand that fifteen years in mortal years was not enough to make firm decisions at.

At twenty years she could have made the right choice. She didn't. Time ran a long enough course that her aspirations and wishes transformed themselves into a form of bitterness, blooming even deeper when nightly visions were of _his_ kingdom and the quiet promises laying behind castle doors. For once, she can admit it.

Sarah Williams lost her dreams.

The everlasting sunlight shone into the kitchen with an ethereal brightness to its rays. Toby would be playing in the backyard right about now. She let a small smile replace the frown, watching her little brother run his tiny feet across the grass in order to keep pace with Merlin. She may have relinquished all claims on achieving a brighter future than the one set in stone for her, but laying eyes on Toby, Sarah knew that he had a promising comfort ahead of him. He had parents who adored him; his little blond ringlets, the open blue contrasting her enigmatic green eyes. Toby had over a decade to work for greatness. She surpassed all exceptions.

"If only…" she whispered. A breeze swept through the window and entered her sinuses with the sweetest smell of spice in the air. The air shifted heavily, bathing the skin on her arms into a light sweat. "If only I hadn't been that young when I entered the Labyrinth. Maybe things would have been different."

Sarah averted her attention from Toby in the window to the dishes a second time, picking up the sponge and scrubbing her wishes away. There are no _if only's_. A tear fell for the first time in three years—for her forgotten friends, for her dreams, for a kingdom that altered her perception forever, and for Jareth.

For the future that never happened and never will happen.


	2. Signs of a Return

**Thank you for all the story alerts and reviews of the introduction to this story. I know that some people don't have the time to review and only selects story alert to keep track of it for next time-I've done this before. But I would greatly appreciate any feedback by reviewing. I don't demand it, but I encourage it. Even if it's just a few words :) Here's the official semi-full chapter to the story and I wholeheartedly dedicate this chapter to my good friend **_put here 2 feel joy. _**She's been with me through the beginning, nearly, in posting fanfiction on this site and contributed many minutes and hours with comments/dislikes/changes to this chapter. It wouldn't be up to this state now without her.**

"Toby, its bed time!" Sarah yelled over the running of faucet water in the bathroom. A head of golden curls peeked from the edge of the door, his full-faced smile pouring unrestrained warmth into her heart at the sight. The faucet shut off followed by the clank of a toothbrush hitting the counter, and Toby darted face first into the pillows on his bed. She ruffled his hair, gently kissing his forehead and tugging him toward the shelf full of books and resigned stuffed animals beside his toy chest. "It's your turn to pick the bedtime story tonight." He ran to the shelves high enough for his reach, running his stubby fingers past the titles of books that weren't able to hold his interest long enough.

Sarah looked away momentarily, eyes catching attention to the balcony doors leading out of the top floor. Karen and her father had given up their room for Toby's use when Sarah started moving out for a college dorm, taking the space of Sarah's room without question once she packed away her childhood treasures in boxes. Of those treasures was the Labyrinth, the one book she made sure to hide at the bottom of the least likely discovered box she would ever come across in ten years when her children would inherit her toys. The world was far less lenient to the infantile thoughts that happily captured her imagination when she was a teenager. And the only way to extinguish that separate being from herself, was to put away everything reminding her of what she aimed to forget. She suddenly had that childish, reminiscent sentiment, like the events had been yesterday. The music box was the hardest and the most difficult to untie her fingers from without throwing herself into hysterical tears. But she watched them depart as she would a childhood friend and soon put those passions behind her. With Sarah's arms folded patiently, she waited several more minutes of listening to Toby's sighs and laughs until he fell into an unusual silence.

Toby tossed a red leather-bound book into her lap, settling himself into his bed, covers tucked to the chin.

"That one," he demanded.

Sarah simply stared, astounded and terrified that the book she made sure to lock away sat in front of her by miraculous odds. Then she laughed.

"Isn't there another story you'd like to hear than this old one? It's not very good—"

"You liked it." He pouted. "Why can't you read it?"

She hesitated, looking at the tears welling in his baby blues. Someone had moved the book, she concluded. Someone that had to be from the Underground. Sarah clasped her hand around Toby's soothingly, giving the book in her other hand a cautionary glance.

"I don't like to read it because it upsets me."

"Why?"

She sighed, laying the book beside her and bringing Toby into her lap.

"Is it about that man in the castle?" He questioned, already recognizing the truth in Sarah's eyes before she could respond. The intuition of a child never ceased to amaze her. Her heartbeat faltered. Though she had a disdainful taste to admit such a thing, everything about the Underground upset her. It changed her perspective, she couldn't deny, but wishing Toby away and fighting to reclaim his life Aboveground cost her a lifetime of accomplishments. Jareth, on the other hand, represented the romantic loss. Her comparative selection of men had no standards matching the perfect yet imperfect beauty and uncanny regality that bent forever to the Goblin King's feet. Had he forgotten her so quickly? Had she been just a player in the Labyrinth who won in centuries of the act, and that was it? One aspect of her journey hadn't changed from the five years of her absence in that world and it was her wish to be known for what she had done—what she won back fairly against all the majestic illusions used against her.

"Yes," was all she could reply with. "It's about him." She eyed the book for the last time that night, tucking away her hopeless anticipations and silent prayers to read her brother a story of dangers untold. "You better get comfortable, Toby, because this story takes a long time to tell."

The story remained unfinished even now.

------

When Toby had drifted off after an extensive half hour, Sarah settled into the sheets of the guest bedroom more than ready for sleep. Relaxing seemed impossible to do in her current physical state—she felt restless. Somebody in the Underground was searching for her or Toby, and they felt satisfied enough to let her become aware of it. Whoever they were, Sarah had an instinctive motivation to assume that the Goblin King was not at fault with this life-intruding plot. He is a King, and Kings have manifold trivial affairs of attending to than personally tormenting the full-grown Champion of the Labyrinth. It was motherly of her, to have this compulsion to protect Toby. His life was the only life of present that had a promising future, and Sarah was bound as a sister and protector to keep that future in mind until he succeeds it. Rays from the moon, the color tonight reaching a golden hue reflecting as the midnight sun, stretched across her bed vibrantly vivid and surreal in its liveliness. And as her thoughts began to settle, preoccupying her mortal life versus her long-standing teenage fairytale of the past, soon she, too, let the drowsiness of slumber claim her body and mind for the next eight hours.

------

Decorated fabrics of shimmering gossamer swirled before her eyes, twirling and flowing past in grand hues. She was surrounded by the mockery of reflective glass and stood in a familiar place where, at one time, she believed she had taken her true position in a belonging reality beside a rightful King. But that too had been a lie. Falling backwards through five years of labyrinthine memories, Sarah was back in the crystalline ballroom, and as a woman. The dancers concealed in nightmarish Venetian masks parted for her as she passed, a contrast to her first time searching through crowds of the fae for only one memorable face. The King at the end of the makeshift path, however, had been radically altered… and darker.

Featherweight wisps of hair the color of blackened ash framed the angular face. Gleaming and pleasurably striking eyes stared back. The piquant shimmer deflected the marble translucence of the other Fae, undertaking darker shadow looming in the corners of his eyes and under the heightened cheekbones. He closed the distance without breaking a vicinal locking of eyes and swept her into his arms. The dance was led by him and executed in a natural grace that Sarah felt able to perform her own in matching sequence with the surrounding Fae. And in the celestial moment inspired by lustrous crystals and obscured dreams she had spotted Jareth in the distance. The King of trickery and games brilliantly held a fair-haired woman moderately close and in perfect alignment with his body throughout the foreign dance.

"Delightful, isn't it?" The enchanting man spinning her with swift ease whispered above a musical tune she couldn't pinpoint.

"What's delightful?" She whispered back in a breathless air.

They spun in a half circle, the women of the mystic dance turning their backs to their lovers, connected solely palm-to-palm in outstretched arms. "That the future of our Underground is dancing in the midst of her kingdom, right here, with me." Sarah caught the laughable undertone in his words as his eyes moved to Jareth.

"And who am_ I_ in the arms of this evening?" She questioned as a lady addressing her suitor. His features flashed in satisfactory triumph, not eluding Sarah's gaze pressured to catch a peripheral view of the Goblin King dressed in his dancing finery.

"You may call me Oriyn, Champion." He tipped his head in acknowledgement and followed her path of view to the future Seelie King and his partner. "Charming couple." Oriyn smiled.

"They're… together?"

The Goblin King's intent glimpse toward Sarah pierced her chest. She blinked back the warm water bringing a glistening sheen to her eyes and looked into the face of her shadowy dancing companion, whose regal poise and imminent temptation captured her interest.

"Gossip and news spread throughout the entire Underground once you defeated the Labyrinth. And Jareth, overthrown by anger and shame at the defeat, eventually recompensed the falling of his kingdom by taking in numerous lovers. Such an act is frivolous in regards to a King's betterment for the kingdom and himself. These lovers were able to benefit their families thanks to the Goblin King's favor, and contributed to the restoring of his kingdom as well as certain areas of the Underground." Oriyn's smug attitude got the better of Sarah, for she continued to dance, mouth slackening at the historical information of the last half decade. He turned her body into the curve of his, baring pointed teeth in the invited smile at their close proximity. "Care for a taste of revenge?"

Sarah's blood boiled her skin to a humiliating blush. Panicked, she looked for the habitual exit that would shatter her dream into consciousness.

"I couldn't do that to him." She spoke low; her breath leaving her lungs in wonderment. Her view went from Oriyn to Jareth in which both men had eyes on her. Jareth released his partner perchance to seize the attention of Sarah as he took long strides to reach her. Could he be trying to warn her? There wasn't enough time to decipher his expression, because she was suddenly hurled from clear sight of him. Oriyn pulled her into the crowd of surrounding Fae who took on more haunting and desolate faces than the familiar goblin pretenses her childlike image frightened away from. Their hands picked at her, grasping her gown through sharpened nails and impious laughter.

She had to leave the dream. She had to run.

Twisting her arms and body from her partner's hands and the hands of the wicked, Sarah lifted her dress and pranced into a run. Jareth's voice flooded her ears but she never turned nor looked for the final sight of his face. The wall shattered a second time and she fell twice more.

Immersed in images of her past and future, Sarah struggled to catch her breath upon waking, tangled in her sheets on the floor of the bedroom with the window thrown agape. The world seemed quiet, apart from the breeze inching by the open window. She freed herself of the covers and promptly hurried to check on Toby. He was as she left him, curled into a ball and surrounded by the comforting faces of his toys and animals. Merlin was snoring on Toby's blue area rug beside the bed. Relief swam over her. Had the dream been real? Life of the present and potential encounters yet to come ran a recurrent line through her. Her true hopes—the want for the Goblin King to remember, forgive, and accept—those hopes were not real and had been proven false. And what of Oriyn? Was his majestic air a sign of another renowned King she was unaware of? The look bringing a warm trepidation into her system caused her to shiver—every unnatural and wildly imposing smile and touch tasting her skin sweetened the temptation for more. But Sarah's awe-inspired feelings toward Jareth and the mental image of seeing another woman in his arms remained uncomprehending. He tricked her at a fragile age into believing all dreams could be lived by what our imagination desired, and he completely _broke_ her entire future. His lack of decency and empathy throughout the thirteen-hour game reflected the life she couldn't rebuild. Effort in the mortal world, the Aboveground, simply meant nothing. Every action, every consequence was enough to get by with the thinness of a hair. Sarah worked hard for a living; managing college, a part-time job, financial deficiencies, and furthering her generosity for her parents in watching Toby. Yet people surpassed her without raising a finger.

She had never spoken out against what she received after years of her unyielding struggle to climb higher. Her fortune was her family, her friends, and her health. That is all that she could ever care about. Passions and future aspirations were exposed in nightly visions woven in the webs of the early dawn. Sarah had seen herself as a loving mother once, an aspiring actress rising to the top, a wife whose husband admired every inch of the person she was and had the potential to be. And even one night, she remembered, she had seen herself as a Queen of an ancient land, her youthful age frozen for an eternity beside her King. Time fell through an ephemeral span, and despite disappointment following that strive for success; she was unrelenting to submit to defeat. Sarah took careful steps not to make any noise as she descended the stairs into the kitchen. A light looked purposefully dimmed by Karen, her stepmother remembering the frequent trips she makes downstairs before daybreak as a result of restive sleep or unmanageable insomnia. She had no more time for any form of sleep today, even if she tried. Reaching for a glass in the cabinet, she filled it halfway and drank deeply from sudden dehydration. The coolness of the drink settled her nerves by the second and lessened the sweat forming in damp beads on her forehead.

What could have happened if she'd been taken Underground again? The thought of such a sickening return to the kingdom she left behind dripped horror into her heart. In less than eight hours, life didn't seem as slow-paced and drawn out with such trifling events. Everything was hurtling in a speed she couldn't keep running to: her blood was the rush of a fatal current, she couldn't stand tall for a moment without feeling her hands shaking, and the idea of _wanting_ to return kept her mind on guard of what she silently wished for. Sarah was curious, to say the least of it. Curious to discover what life Jareth lived now that she left the picture, if her presence had been significant in any ascertained way; she wanted to see more of the Underground, to wonder if any of it lived up to the beauty and mystery the Labyrinth held in its maze. There was a connection she felt, a prickling feeling in her fingers when she thought of the Underground and Jareth and the kingdoms beyond his that she couldn't ignore. She released an exhalation of air, half laughing and half crying for what was to come.

Her fingers tightened on the glass upon looking up at the window across from her. There Oriyn stood, a blending likeness to the shadowed dark cornering in the room. The foreboding violet of his eyes bore through her body as it had in her dream, examining the womanly curves unrevealed and the skin that was not yet bare. Sarah's knees trembled in response. She looked behind her and saw no second presence in the room and then set her face to him. A smirk of portentous conquest blemished his unholy features until his figure faded into the night. She released the glass and it shattered with a strident crash against the tile.

"It can't be." Sarah's face fell. When the time of her return to the Underground arrived, she knew there was no turning back. She had a strange feeling that an overactive imagination could not have placed the man from the ballroom in front of her. Nothing that she had seen in her world half-conscious or completely aware before this evening was comparable to the reality of his knowing stare, a spark revealing knowledge she wasn't able to grasp entirely. It was a moment as dangerous as sword held to the neck, as if she was seeing her fatalistic future in another's hands.

Finally matching her breathing with her heartbeat, Sarah looked to the stairs expectantly, but no footsteps descended on hearing the glass shatter. She cleaned the pieces up and resorted to curling up on the couch to wait out the remaining night hours. If another dream followed tonight's, she would be sure to claim the information she craved to alleviate the fear of forthcoming magic and peril.


	3. Giving In

The night was still in the Underground—the glowing radiance that was the sky fell behind the hundreds of kingdoms of the bedazzling realm, dusting the sands of sleep over the lids of its occupants. Those that held empty troubles or crimes committed without regret on their consciences would never wake until the day glow of the sun parted the blankets of darkness. But of the unfortunate minority whose thoughts dwelled on danger, uncertainty, and tribulations; even the sandman's stardust couldn't weigh their faults down. And even their kings could never be dead to the world.

Jareth, try as he may, never was excluded from this category. Especially tonight. He hadn't thought of Sarah in years, or at the least he had tried not to think of what her omnipotent presence had done to his kingdom and the bordering kingdoms beyond the Labyrinth. The women he'd claimed in these five years passing were given the responsibility to become the eminent barriers hindering the weakness he succumbed to. But the dream, the nightmare that plagued his vision in the previous hour, that wasn't a conduit of his imagination. Sarah wasn't in the form of her childlike body the instant his eyes drew in her figure. She had grown up, and to this day all his memories left of her were of her younger age. Her womanly form that had been a new alien image to his eyes was real. He paced nonsensically up and down his study as the seconds ticked by, reviewing dispositions documented amongst his court in hopes of tossing aside the reality of the dream. Dreams were powerful in the world of the fae, holding a consequential meaning to the dreamer and the dwellers of that dream. Jareth shuffled past papers, the flesh of his hand running along his chin in deep thought as the evening's tiresome hours wore on him.

Thalia, his finitely enduring lover of three years was also present in the dream, as she had been the one he took for a dancing partner. He felt the lively connection between her and himself at contact, and knew she felt he wasn't part of the dreamscape that surrounded them. _All_ attendants inside the nightmare seemed to lack the hazy façade that composed dream-characters and coexisted together in the dance, as if each had been summoned by one commandeering entity. The single person other than Jareth himself inside that spirit-filled illusion competent in summoning so many beings was the Unseelie King, a sidhe lacking a guilty conscience in all actions taken by him. Few knew about the true identity of Sarah: that she's the mortal-prophesized queen to stand for eternity through his reign, and that her rejection of her own kingdom had forever ruined her chances at a life Aboveground. Anyone who had heard the tale of Jareth's temporary fall only knew the girl as a tyrant, selfish and caustic as she charged through his Labyrinth to take back her baby brother. Jareth wished her to remain that way. None other than Thalia and the Oracles had known the truth about Sarah, until now. Oriyn's familiarity with Sarah by the way he held her in mocking possession suspected that he had ordained knowledge of her previous visit.

"He manipulated her dream world," Jareth whispered, angrily bringing down his tightening fist and turning towards the door to exit the room.

"What can I say? You caught me… _Jareth_." The hostile tone of the Unseelie King bit through the air like ice. Jareth froze in his gait, swerving to face the reflective glass of a mirror perched between two bookcases at the southern end of the room. A much different face in every angle, tone, and expression stared back, the pointed smirk struggling to hide the torrent of chaos within. Oriyn walked closer until the looking glass disallowed any progression, and peered into the mess of papers fluttering around in disarray as a result of Jareth's disturbance. "It seems I did more damage than I intended." He cracked a crooked smile.

"The girl was never meant to return to the Underground. Your interference tonight has broken every rule established from the beginning of time when a mortal ventures into the Labyrinth… _my_ kingdom." Jareth was furious. Despite his feelings of displeasure at knowing the success Sarah worked for in her life Aboveground would never take root, he wanted to keep her safe from hands like Oriyn's—hands that took gratification in molding vulnerable minds to his views until the time arrived when their annihilation added power to his kingdom of darkness. He had the faintest doubts that Sarah had become the Unseelie King's object of affection, lust more so than sentimental attachment.

Oriyn grasped at a foreign object out of Jareth's vision, bringing forth a mirror fashioned of dark quartz and obsidian. The mirrored material in the center focused on transparent mist until the clouds took shape into a young woman with ebony hair and emerald eyes. Her posture was alert even when her eyes were closed, a poor attempt at trying to fall back into an unwilling slumber. The source of light in the room provided a comfort she would by no means experience any longer now that her mind sat open to the Underground realm.

"Such a beautiful woman now, don't you agree?" He laughed as he moved the handheld mirror closer to the glass. Sarah's face was a mask of fear as Jareth's eyes moved to her unnerved form on the cushions. The dream they had all shared was confirmed real in that moment.

"Sarah is to remain in that world as long as she lives, am I clear?"

"I'm afraid not, my friend. Your treasured Sarah is now considered part faery, and foretold by the Oracles to be the Seelie Queen." His disgusted sneer fell prominent in the shadows of the room, his dusky skin curling the shades into creatures perching on his shoulders. Sarah's restless shape faded in the mirror, and Oriyn set it out of sight once again. "Her victory over you had, indeed, formed a wall between her world and ours. But as of late, that barrier is dissipating. Adulthood has claimed her not only in mind, but also in body." The licentious curve in his mouth told tales of pleasurable motives. Jareth whirled to the mirror encasing Oriyn's form, a flickering candlestick raised in his hand to strike. The Unseelie King's eyes widened in delight before the bone-chilling laugh killed the silence of the room. "Go on, Jareth. Shatter the mirror. That's the only damage you'll ever inflict upon me. Without your queen, you cannot ascend the Seelie throne and inherit the powers equal to mine. Sarah _must_ return to the Underground. And if you won't take her, I certainly will." He ran his fingers along the edge of the mirror, scratching the surface with his nails until tiny trails of cracks followed behind. The fractures multiplied in number until fragments of Oriyn's face lingered in the mirror image.

"Sarah is not of the corrupt nature," Jareth bit back. "She is useless to you when darkness hasn't touched her, which means that you cannot touch her."

He raised a departing hand, "Wrong again, Goblin King." For one miniscule second, Sarah reflected in Oriyn's unnatural eyes. Light abstained from touching her, the shrouding shadows of the Unseelie realm swallowing her—it was a picture of happenings yet to come, events that would rise in history if Jareth failed to prevent them. "Five years have passed since Sarah treaded the ground of your kingdom. The last time you laid eyes on her was tonight, a generous act on my part, and she's torn. It's such a pity that Sarah's destined-to-be can't recognize the heartbreak, the loss harnessed in the depths of her." Oriyn dropped into a sardonic bow, his extended palm directed to Jareth. "But, of course, his _majesty_ held the fair Thalia in his arms while I savored the warmth of Sarah's body against mine—"

"Enough!" The candlestick slammed into the glass with unrelenting power, mutating the perverse grin of the Unseelie King until his illusive magic consumed Jareth's study no more. His breathing erratic with ire and shame, he felt an instant coercion to see Sarah's face again, to know that she was safe. But, for the welfare of his kingdom, for his own pride and status as heir to the High King's throne, he would not conjure up the magic to see her. He made that decision half a decade ago. The only moment when that promise had been broken was under Oriyn's will. A light tap at the door startled Jareth out of his thoughts, and the sudden sight of brilliant golden hair gave him enough composure to release the candlestick from his grasp.

"Thalia," Jareth sighed. "You shouldn't be awake at this late of hour."

A quick smile pervaded the anxiety gripping him. "Nor you, Jareth." It was then that her eyes took in the disastrous room. They moved from the papers concealing the bottom of the floor to the shattered remains of the mirror. "What happened?"

"Did you dream it too?" he whispered. "Sarah was there, and Oriyn, his court—"

"None of us were dream figures in that ballroom," she interjected. "I sensed the heaviness of the magic in the air, and your face looked too puzzled to be illusory." Thalia grasped his hands. "He won't have her, Jareth. She's too good for his darkness."

"I'm afraid not." She stared into the eyes that witnessed many wars and struggles suffered by his forefathers, his people, and the events of his own life. Another war lurked beneath the surface of the Underground, and Oriyn planned to start it. "We all have a form of darkness inside us. It just so happens that Sarah's darkness is overwhelming the light. I tried to save her—none of this would be happening if she had taken what I offered to her! Her mortal life would have been successful had she seized those dreams. Yet she rejected them, and because of that, her world is darkness now. Oriyn is allowed to claim a mortal overburdened with negative emotions, a sign of forthcoming corruption. He has permission to take Sarah."

"But he won't take Sarah." Thalia's eyes narrowed. "Not if we take her first. She was meant to return to the Underground. Only you had stopped this fate from occurring sooner. We both know where her destiny lies. The prophetic messages told of the girl who defeated the King of the Labyrinth, and in that defeat the girl would rise to be queen at the king's side. But, again, not all is set in stone. The cards have turned, Jareth, you were told this not five mortal years ago after Sarah made her decision. She can choose." She rushed to his desk and flipped through the papers, grasping a folded and sealed piece of parchment. Having unfolded the note, she thrust the paper into his hands and pointed to the four lines written there.

_And when the mortal shall return to the Beneath World,_

_The realm's fate shall lie in the right-wrong whispers of the Courts:_

_Choose the dark and the Underground falls into the reign of shadow,_

_Choose the light and the Underground rises into the reign of the just._

"Sarah can choose either Oriyn as her king and reign as his queen over the Unseelie, or she can choose you as her king and become High Queen of the Seelie Court. Either way, a war will occur. On which side she fights, only time will tell. We have to take her to the Underground before he does, or Sarah might be lost to us."

-- --- --

"Sarah, is everything all right?" the voice of her inquisitive stepmother startled her out of her reveries as she watched Toby run off into shade of the playground. Sarah briefly squeezed her eyes shut, her thumb and forefinger pressing into the bridge of her nose to stop a headache from approaching. _Everything is fine_, she thought, j_ust fine_. She turned to Karen to tell her the same thing she was attempting to convince herself.

"It's just my overactive imagination running off with me again. I had a nightmare last night. It's nothing important," Sarah stated. Her stepmother had always been the one to tell her to put her childhood follies away and prepare herself for the more important aspects in life. After conquering the Labyrinth, Sarah finally took all those suggestions into action, and she didn't need to be reminded to do the same again. She refused to bring back the past in such an insignificant conversation. The hours of sleep Sarah lost the night before brought an aching discomfort to her physical disposition throughout the following day. She felt sluggish, detached, and unnerved from the frightening events of the dream still fresh in her mind. There was an underlying sense that she was being watched from every shadow at her back, every darkened corner on the street or in a room. Nowhere had she traveled felt safe to venture. Bringing up the topic of nightmares was a poor choice on her part.

"I heard the crash last night," Karen commented, laying a hand gently on Sarah's shoulder. "We all have nightmares every once in a while. I have no problem with you turning a few lights on and making some tea—that's why I leave the kitchen lights dimmed." There were these few moments that Sarah noticed, when all the troubles she endured over the past five years fell away, when work and school pushed itself to the back of her mind, these were the moments Sarah cherished in her aching heart. Once she got past the rebellion of her adolescent years, Karen became somewhat of a mother to her, supporting her in any advancement she longed to achieve. She patted her stepmother's hand, whispering a thank you to her and admitting for the second time that everything was all right. And for a few seconds, the lingering darkness of Oriyn inching into her mind was not able to touch her.

The day passed normally from then on: Toby spent a couple hours playing in the park with his school friends while Sarah and Karen talked of work and education and all the priorities that came with being an adult these days. Every now and then her stepmother would mention relationships, in which Sarah would respond with her recent disinterest in having any type of relationship. There were a few men that came around once or twice in her life, most of them either disappointing or temporary. Karen would then respond with the common rebuttal that Sarah still had several years left before she could ever worry about getting married. Quite honestly, Sarah could never look at a man again without comparing him with a particular king so very long ago. The lingering image of his face in her dream brought so many memories back she had forced herself to disregard. His face looked anxious, terrified as the man called Oriyn swept her away from the brighter edge of the room into the darkness he felt so at ease within. Something was wrong, and she had the faintest feeling that the nightmare was more than it appeared to be.

As Sarah dressed herself for bed that night, she soon discovered the meaning behind the horror on Jareth's face. The darkness flooded her room too quickly to be natural, even when the drapes on her windows were completely open to the full moon glaring into the open space from outside. She had heard a faint laugh on the air, possibly several laughs riding on the nonexistent wind running past her ears. The inhumane ring the voice brought along with it sent a chill through her spinal column. Footsteps ran across the floorboards behind her in the shadows of the room and Sarah turned with the noise, her breath escaping her in short, frightened gasps. Beads of sweat broke out on the back of her neck as the giggling proceeded on.

"Show yourself!" she shouted into the dark. Her head turned every possible way until she became dizzy trying to catch the source of the sounds with her eyes. Soon her sight focused in on the mirror that sat upon her dresser across the room. She wasn't the only image reflected in the glass. Oriyn smiled back at her politely, dropping into a simple bow before rising to meet her face. "Who are you?" Sarah whispered, almost to herself. She must have fallen asleep to be seeing this.

Oriyn chuckled silently, gazing down at the floor on his side of the mirror. "I think, my dear Sarah, you know exactly who I am."

"If I know exactly who you are," she started, "then what are you doing here? This can't be physically possible. You're not _real_."

"But I am, Sarah. I _truly_ am." A moment of silence settled upon them as Sarah stared in awe around her room, finding no one there except a man staring back at her through her vanity mirror. Oriyn was losing patience. Jareth was going to come to retrieve her soon and he needed to act fast. "Sarah, have you ever wondered what the rest of the Underground looked like? Have you ever thought of returning to the realm a second time to witness wonders beyond that wretched Labyrinth?" A knowing smirk that suited his handsome features so well returned to his face. "I _know_ you have. I can see it lurking in the very depths of your being. You long for the magic of the Underground, for a life much less tiring than the one you already live up here." He beckoned her with his hand, outstretching his palm until it literally melted out of the mirror's frame. "I can show you."

Her feet made one step at a time closer to the end of her room, her heart edging her into the thrill of returning to the place she had long desired to return to, while her mind told her to hold her ground for just a little longer.

"How can I trust that you won't put me in danger? That you aren't coercing me into something against my will subconsciously?" Sarah's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"You can't trust me. No one can be trusted in the Underground," he confirmed simply. "No one enters the Underground against their will. It's only a matter of what one desires in their heart, even if those desires are unspoken by the person themselves. Take my hand," he beckoned again. Oriyn's pointed teeth glimmered in the moonlight reflecting beams off the glass. He reached further out of the mirror until his entire arm was outstretched. Sarah looked around anxiously, wondering what would happen to time here if she agreed to go with him. Would Toby be alright? Would her father and stepmother wake the next morning to find that Sarah didn't occupy her bed? Biting her lip, she walked so close to the mirror that she was an arm's length away from grasping Oriyn's hand. Shadows clung to his skin as they did in her dream, so attracted to the shimmering darkness that he was made of that they practically fed off of his energy.

Something was amiss, but she didn't care. Anything was better than living in this world now, and she felt willing to take the chance of returning to beginning of all of her troubles. It could be a new start, a new life where the world wouldn't reject her hopes and dreams so openly as this world did. A wind began to pick up inside the room, swirling violently until the windows burst open in a flash of light. Another hand emerged from the blinding brightness, a hand belonging to the familiar face of the Goblin King as he reached out desperately for her.

"Sarah! Don't you dare go to him! Don't take his hand! He's dangerous, please, just come with me. He can't harm you if you take my hand." The Goblin King stepped into the room in a mad dash, a blinding rage consuming his eyes the instant he looked at the Unseelie King.

He knew he was too late.

Without considering the rush of confusion invading her mind, Oriyn had already seized her hand in his grasp, pulling her through the glass without a sound or hair out of place. Jareth was left staring at an empty room, dumbfounded and shocked that its occupant was already gone. Sarah was gone.


	4. On Neutral Ground

_I know it's been a year guys, but I feel like it isn't necessary to explain main long overdue absence from the fanfiction community. Life becomes more demanding as we age and, well, I had to obey the responsibilities put on me during my first year of college. I literally gave up writing in order to complete the heavy workload given both semesters, and I've been working nonstop this summer with additional classes on my plate. Countless hours of listening Placebo songs brought me back to my happy place and inspired me to write this chapter. This chapter is twice as long - an informal apology to any of the readers that I have left._

The glass of Sarah's bedroom vanity melted around the skin of her arms like butter, and soon she felt a falling sensation take hold of her body as if she were Alice plummeting towards Wonderland. Except, instead of that sense of anticipated amazement the fairytale figure experienced on her way down, Sarah felt unrestrained dread. She was aware that Oriyn had stolen her without her consent, without a thought or a moment's hesitation the second Jareth appeared in her bedroom. It gave Sarah the impression that there was an eminent rivalry between the two significant figures currently in her life, whether she wanted them there or not, and she was determined to find out the circumstances upon which this rivalry had begun, for she had been thrown straight into the center of it. Confusion plagued her thoughts as she fell farther into the darkness. The oxygen fueling her focused train of thought and desperate intakes of breath grew less present in the air until she could no longer inhale. Sarah reached with grasping hands around her, hoping to take hold of an object or an invisible ledge that would stop her from sinking to any lower depth than where she was now, but to no avail. The moment her breath had completely left her lungs, her body flailing aimlessly into oblivion, Sarah dropped roughly onto the shimmering terrain of the Underground. She recovered quickly from the fall, uttering nothing more than an annoyed groan, taking sharp breaths as she rose to her feet and twisted around, her dark curls bouncing to and fro as Sarah finally realized where she was.

"What the—?" she exclaimed. Oriyn followed through the metallic liquid of the mirror after her, falling lightly towards the diamond-like rocks and landing on his feet. "What just happened?" Sarah declared.

Oriyn pulled his lips into a tight smile and bowed slightly to her, stating in a very simple and gracious manner, "I saved you from the attempted kidnapping planned by the Goblin King."

"I don't believe you," Sarah retorted, her tone growing from annoyed to beyond angry the more Oriyn's satisfied grin grew on his face.

"You don't have to believe anybody, dear Sarah. You are here on your own free will—"

"Free will?" Sarah laughed bitterly. "Does dragging me through an inanimate object in my bedroom in the dead of night without my consent make it free will? I have a life back there, a family who loves me, an education on the verge of being finished. I was on my way to becoming _something_, regardless of the pitfalls I've encountered so many times in my life, and that includes this place," Sarah spat. "I have been nothing but tricked here. The friends I made in the Underground have not appeared to me since the night of my visit to this place no matter how many times I have asked for them. As soon as I took my leave of this world, life has been more than difficult in mine, but I have trudged through it without complaint." Her words left her in a state of morose remembrance; the tears welling in her eyes equally matching the passionate emotions evident in her tone. Sarah could do nothing but stand there and feel the flush of her cheeks heat her face for embarrassing herself in front of a man she barely knew, and had no intention in the entirety of the world to trust.

Oriyn's expression remained immovable and impassive, his face beautifully carved of nothing but refracting gems and stone as he watched Sarah's mortal weaknesses surface. She had started to crack already, and this satisfied him immensely. _Excellent_.

"Is that trickery you have experienced in the Underground any different from Above? I have seen more than enough suffering from the world in which you inhabited. You see, Sarah," he jibed, his boots grinding against the Underground floor as he turned towards her, "the trickery you witnessed in your first stay in the Underground was all on Jareth's part—it is second nature to the Fae of his court. The Labyrinth itself deceived you. But we are neither in the Labyrinth nor the kingdoms beyond his kingdom right now, are we? The Aboveground's deception is just as equal as the Underground's, but the deception of the Above is unavoidable once it has trapped you in the harsh reality you humans are so obstinate to live in. As soon as you feel that tiny fraction of failure flooding your system," Oriyn stepped forward, making a pinching motion with his fingers for effect, "your desires escalate. You begin to put your heart and soul into those petty desires in order for you to overcome the previous loss. It is all a cycle of tragedy—" Oriyn's tone softened. "Do you not see that you are fulfilling this cycle, Sarah, merely living in a world where no greatness will come to you?"

She flinched back from his words as if he had just stabbed her, hitting her at her most vulnerable state, but Sarah was good at hiding her fears and she made certain Oriyn would have a first-hand encounter with her will to defy.

"You lie." Sarah whispered. "What's the meaning of me being born Aboveground if I could never achieve any form of greatness in my life? What's the significance of my existence if I am merely living a cycle?" At those questions Oriyn smirked, a knowing and mischievous smirk, as if he had prior knowledge of something that had not come to fruition in Sarah's mind yet.

"You do not have a purpose in the Aboveground because your destiny lies in the Underground, whether you wish to address this fact or not. Now enough questions, Sarah dear. May I simply ask that you put aside this argument for another time and accompany me to my castle? There is much to know, and too little time to ask." Oriyn swept an arm in front of him, taking a single glance back at Sarah to beckon her onwards. She crossed her arms, thin-lipped and immobile. "Please, Sarah. I insist." His pointed teeth, a startling likeness to Jareth's smile, both threatened and beguiled. Sarah blinked momentarily, praying that the chill passing through her spine was one of disgust and not self-gratifying temptation. With the utmost regret, Sarah moved her feet one after the other until she was keeping pace with Oriyn's long strides.

* * *

Jareth was _livid_. Fraught with apprehension. Today would be a day of bitter strife indeed if what he had feared would come to pass quicker than he imagined. His footfalls quickened with every second that ticked by, Thalia trailing several meters behind as he approached the dwelling of the Oracles. What could he do now that Oriyn has Sarah in his possession? He is certainly no match for the Unseelie King, and everything that occurred up to this moment made him fear the worst for Sarah. _Foolish girl_, he thought. _Foolish me_.

"Your majesty," Thalia beseeched. "Do not think that you have failed! There is still hope—"

"My dear, this hope that you speak of does not sound very promising as of late," he reproached, continuing at a fast pace up the hillside until he reached the rim of the Stonehenge. "The Oracles will either affirm or deny that I have failed, for I did not expect so much as the prophecy being laid to rest with Sarah Aboveground."

The grounds that encircled the ancient land were silent, as if holding their breath for the Goblin King's call to the astral plane beyond. Jareth approached the outer edge of the circle and whispered in quick, low tones, brushing his hand along the stone as the language of the Elders emerged from his lips. Monarchs strictly had knowledge of this language, for it allowed the royals to communicate with their ancestors that laid the very foundations of the Fae into Underground soil. It allowed a glimpse at what has already passed and what has yet to come; an opportunity to fix the damage before it would ever begin to take root. Once the Goblin King finished the incantation, he was allowed passage into the center of the Stonehenge. The circle glowed as he put a foot in, and with each precise step Jareth made toward the center, the circle became brighter. Three beautiful women emerged from the haze swallowing the circle as a defense mechanism for intruding outsiders, one different in stature and physicality from the other. They stood in remote tranquility on three opposing sides of the circle to form a trinity, the Goblin King in the center.

"It has been quite a while since we last exchanged words with you, Jareth," the tallest of the Oracles spoke, her smooth alabaster face lacking any ounce of emotion as the words withdrew from her lips.

"Five mortal years," the second Oracle informed.

"What brings you here, Goblin King? The prophecy has been spoken," the third inquired.

Jareth lowered his head, bowing slightly at the waist in due respect for the seers. "I am here to request what must be done to ensure that the mortal from Above, Sarah Williams, will not fall into the darkness of the Unseelie Court." His lips quivered, humiliated at what he was about to say next. "She is in the High King's possession. The Unseelie King. I had failed to retrieve her before this misfortune had befallen us."

The three Oracles inclined their heads towards one another, speaking in a language inaudible to Fae ears, their mouths barely moving an inch. A few minutes passed in silence, and once again the tallest lowered her eyes to Jareth to speak on the others' behalves, "All is not lost, Jareth. You have failed to retrieve Lady Sarah, but the prophecy has not come to pass. It is _her_ choice, Goblin King, neither yours nor the Unseelie King's as much as Oriyn wishes to seize control of her condition with all of his power. Remember what you have been taught over the hundreds of years of preparation for your kingship: where there is darkness, there is light. Where this is despondency, there is hope. A war is not lost until the king himself surrenders to his enemy's mercy. You will encounter Sarah's presence several times before her heart decides where it belongs. Time will be in your favor. But you, the master of time herself, must be prudent in its usage."

"What must I do to convince her of belonging with the Seelie Court? Sarah is not yet aware that she is part Fae, and surely she is being influenced by the second under Oriyn's watchful eye. I cannot tolerate the idea that this corruption might succeed—"

"You know in the very depths of your being what you must do." The Oracle's eyes were penetrating as they peered into Jareth's. "These are the words of the past, present, and the future. Heed them well."

And in a moment, the circle's light diminished along with the presence of the Oracles, leaving Jareth and a curious Thalia standing empty-handed and alone against the backdrop of the evening sky. The Goblin King stepped from the inner circle of the Stonehenge, grasping Thalia's hands in his own. She kissed both of his hands to comfort him and watched what once was a face filled with worry turn into a stony countenance—the face the public knows best of the Goblin King.

"I will not let her slip from my grasp once again," he whispered. "If I have to put my life at stake in order to win this war Oriyn intends to start, then so be it. I will restore order to the Underground, and Sarah will help me do it."

* * *

"And here is the west wing of the castle. I find it's the lovelier of the two wings—my court spends quite a large amount of time here," Oriyn grinned, looking at Sarah from the corner of his eye to see her take in her surroundings. She spun in a slow circle, looking very attentively at the winding halls stretching beyond the entranceway she was standing in next to the parlor. The room was detailed in 12th to 13th century Gothic architecture, _leaning slightly towards French Gothic_, Sarah noted inside her head. Its stained glass windows stretched into the high cathedral ceilings decorated in several black crystal chandeliers, welcoming the complex networks of lightly metallic sculptures embedded into the walls. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Sarah jumped at the feeling of Oriyn's breath fanning against her ear as he whispered to her, standing at a proximity that had been far too close for comfort. Her heart thudded against her chest uncomfortably. "The castle itself is over five millenniums old, but it still stands proud and even more magnificent than in its early days." His gaze pierced through her back as she turned from him. Sarah didn't respond to his obvious pride in everything involving his domain. Instead, she took in the circumstances that led up to this point, the gears turning in her head rather quickly.

She had been silent and willing while Oriyn familiarized her with the castle, refraining from asking anything out of hand that would anger him in case he was prone to dangerous outburst. But Sarah noticed how quickly his mood had calmed as it adapted to the sheer darkness and temptation the environment of the structure provided, and thought it was appropriate to spring her notions on him now. In a swift move, she turned to face him, asking so boldly it caught Oriyn by surprise. "You never told me your station in the Underground, what is it? What makes you so much of a threat to the Goblin King?" she inquired, the flash of interest in her mysterious orbs made Oriyn raise a brow in question.

"Well," he began, "my dear Sarah, let me thoroughly apologize that I did not formally introduce myself. I am Oriyn, High King of the Unseelie Court, a weaver of temptation and pleasure for those who seek it." Oriyn's unnaturally violet eyes glimmered with mischief; he declined admitting that he is also the master of the shadows, nightmares, and the infamous Unseelie Hunt. _No need to strike terror into her heart when she's still a significant component to this game_, he reminded himself. "As for Jareth," Oriyn looked down at Sarah with absolute intensity. "Let's just say that we originate from courts that do not get along. We have been rivals for centuries."

She blinked in an irresolute manner, trying to disconnect the stare of the Unseelie King from becoming too focused on the emotions dancing across her features at a rapid speed. Sarah crossed her arms as a poor attempt to shield herself from Oriyn, as if she could protect herself from a being whose power is superior in each and every way. Raising her eyes to the level of his, she let out her final question of the evening, the most important of them all, "I don't particularly buy that story of yours claiming that the Goblin King intended to kidnap me. If he wished to kidnap me, he could have stolen me away when time allowed. Why was he so anxious to take me away from you?" Her eyes narrowed on him. Oriyn didn't look the least bit stressed at this question, but before he could give her the answers she needed, they were interrupted by the dreadfully sweet voice of a woman behind them

"Your majesty. What a pleasure it is to see you at so late an hour." The woman accentuated the word pleasure in a low, intimate tone. Her eyes swept over his body in delight, making Sarah cringe slightly at the woman making it completely obvious that she lusted over what she was seeing.

"Ah, hello, Cordelia," greeted Oriyn. Cordelia fell into a habitual curtsy, looking up at the Unseelie King from under her dark lashes. The woman was indeed very striking to the eyes—her hair cascaded down her back in chestnut waves, a tint of red reflecting off of it as the strands struck the candlelight in the right place. She was quite tall, as are most Fae, and unexpectedly curvaceous in figure. At first glance, Sarah would find her appear to be a pleasant person. However, it was her face that hindered her from finding favor in Cordelia. The woman's eyes were as black as charcoal, her lids slightly lifted at the corners in a feline-like angle. Her body was positioned in a constant anticipatory stance, shifting unnaturally when she sensed the slightest disruption around her. Undeniably feline. Cordelia's small mouth twisted into a territorial smile once she caught sight of Sarah standing to the right of Oriyn.

"And who is this charming creature?" she questioned.

"This is Sarah Williams, the Champion of the Labyrinth." A corner of Oriyn's mouth lifted at Cordelia's imminent shock. "Sarah, this is Cordelia, she is one of the courtiers that frequents the Unseelie Court… among other things."

"Pleased to meet you," Sarah mustered a smile of her own, but it came out as a tight-lipped grin.

"Well then," she breathed, "it is an honor to stand in your presence, Lady Sarah." Cordelia moved closer and planted on kiss on both sides of Sarah's face, pulling back to give her another feral smile. She felt a current of malicious intent cut through her at the touch of the Fae. "Welcome. I trust that his majesty is treating you well. Have you been shown where you will be staying?"

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when Cordelia mentioned such a suggestion, for she was exhausted. The urge to sleep abruptly overwhelmed her, and she couldn't contain the unrestrained yawn for effect.

"I'm afraid he hasn't. Can I see the rest of the west wing another day, perhaps? Lord knows how long I will be staying here, based on your willingness to tell me the reason why I am in the Underground in the first place." She turned to Cordelia and aimed to fall into what she hoped was a decent curtsy, suddenly aware that she had no skirt or dress to press her hands into. "It was very nice to meet you, Cordelia," she repeated.

"Likewise." Cordelia shot one last look at Oriyn, licking her lips without thinking. "Your majesty."

Oriyn and Sarah went in the opposite direction of Cordelia, furthering their walk into the west wing of the palace. Several flights of stairs were climbed until they had reached their destination, Sarah never questioning the Unseelie King once until they ended their walk at an ebony door. "Not to point fingers, but Cordelia seems like she'd be a terror to have in court. She was far less pleasant than the man we saw earlier, Kayne, I think," Sarah remarked, her lips perking into the first smile she's shown since arriving in the Underground.

The Unseelie King laughed, waving his hand in a motion that opened the door, replying, "Yes, she is. My biggest regret is bedding her the year she first arrived in court. She's been a little… desperate since then to impress me enough to consider her as a lover again."

Sarah wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You _slept_ with that woman? What could have possibly convinced you to be that intimate with her?"

Oriyn shuffled her into the room, a hand lightly pressing into her back as she walked into the open space of her bedchambers. "Well, she is quite easy on the eyes, I cannot deny. Nevertheless, she was a bore in bed. I let her beguile my other subjects as she pleases, which makes her more of a courtesan than a courtier." She forced back a laugh at his last endeavor to humor her. He stepped back, hoping Sarah approved of her quarters. She moved about the room for a minute or two in awe of how large and magnificent it looked, turning to and fro until she inclined her head to stare back at Oriyn. A tiny smile pulled at her lips.

"Thank you. The room looks very comfortable."

"I trust you'll find it beyond comfortable. There is a powder room through the door to your right, and I'm confident that you will enjoy all of the accommodations I have prepared for you in your wardrobe as well as your vanity. I had a maid assigned to you for when you wake in the morning. She will dress you early tomorrow morning and prepare you for breakfast with me sharply by eight o'clock." Oriyn pulled a watch out of his jacket pocket, observing the hands that told him it was well past midnight and a quarter till thirteen o'clock. "Well, Sarah, I have arranged for the fireplace to be lit and your nightclothes to be laid out in the powder room." He stepped forward, an arm curled behind his back while the other reached for her hand. Bending down, his lips lowered to press a soft kiss into the back of her hand. Sarah took notice of the curling shadows holding to his figure as he rose to his full height. "I bid you goodnight, my lady."

At his last words, the Unseelie King walked to the open door of the room, pausing for one more second. "And Sarah? Please don't wander the castle without me escorting you. I'm afraid some parts of the castle are… dangerous. I would hate to see your face ruined by such an unfortunate mishap." Oriyn turned back around and silently closed the door behind him, leaving Sarah to herself at last.

She let out the breath she had been holding for the past several minutes, resigning to dressing into the clothes set out for her and crawling into the bed as soon as possible. The silken sheets and goose feather pillows loosened Sarah's taut muscles considerably, and without a second thought worrying her commonly troubled mind, she nodded off into a fatigued sleep.

Sarah felt herself slipping away, drifting aimlessly about in a pit of dark, wondering if this entire circumstance was a dream within a dream—an illusion her overtly imaginative mind could create over the span of five years. Was she Aboveground again, tucked under the softness of familiar sheets in the midst of summer, dreaming up her desired life she cynically struck down at the tender age of fifteen? Or, perhaps, was she doomed in the Underground as she had originally thought, detained in a kingdom ruled by the polar opposite of Jareth? Sarah stretched a hand out into the darkness, hoping to steady herself into a standing position in order to fully explore her surroundings. She hadn't slept in over a day, and it struck her curiosity that the lesser the sleep she had, her dream world appeared to plummet nonsensically into oblivion. Could it be a result of her unexpected residence in the Underground, the world that mortals often traveled to when their spirits were set loose from their bodies, the world that contained the very substance of dreams, which was the cause of her dreamless sleep?

She pressed a palm to her forehead in frustration, stomping her foot in mindless effort as if to state that this made no sense whatsoever. And just then, the sole of her foot hit solid ground, igniting a source of light that spread upwards, downwards, and diagonally until the room lit from the inside-out. There seemed to be no particular location for the room in which she stood in, but the scenery depicted looked very similar to a room she could accidentally stumble upon in the Underground. Books rose in tall stacks throughout the room, filling bookcases and any empty spaces left behind on a hard surface. There were several scrolls and letters sprawled across a desk that were pressed together with a wax seal bearing a symbol that clicked with familiarity in her head, though she couldn't put her finger on just where she had seen it. Fabrics adorning the windows and walls were decorated in an intricate stitching people of her world could only dream of weaving, and the bordering panels outlining the room had been carved with care and painted in gold—whoever resides in this room certainly lived a life of luxury and fortune, for it was a room fit for a king.

"Sarah?" a voice called out, rich in tenor and velvety in tone… and frighteningly memorable. Gradually, she turned, her hand reaching up and lightly brushing against her throat in utter shock at the man standing before her. Jareth appeared just as surprised as she, though he only gave the secret of his bewilderment away in his eyes; his posture remained heavily composed, calm with an edge of anxiety lying dormant within him.

She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and preventing her from speaking a word in her defense. "How did I get here?" The question left her in almost a whisper, but the silence of the room made it easily audible to even the least sensitive ears. "Am I in a dream?"

Jareth shifted in his stance, moving from the other end of the room and walking towards the seat at his desk. The slightest movement set Sarah on edge, and she found herself taking a step away with each footfall that brought the Goblin King closer. He was _real_, alive, and communicating with her through his expressions as if he had seen her for the first time in his life. Their faces mirrored each other's in confusion, and Sarah grew irritated with him when she realized he had not shown any relief that she was standing before him in the complete safety of her mind. Hadn't he tried to steal her away just as Oriyn said? Didn't he want her?

"It appears so," Jareth stated. "A dream that you conjured from your own mind and pulled me into." He paused for a long moment. "This was not of my doing," he defended. "Sarah—"

"I didn't choose to go through the mirror with him. I didn't take his hand," she declared, wringing her hands in frustration. Sarah's eyes locked with Jareth's unintentionally, and she could faintly detect his present vexation in the atmosphere of the room. "I… I had no intention of returning here in the first place." She looked down, avoiding the scrutiny of his eyes as she continued, "I haven't been in contact with anyone from this place since the day I left it. It was kind of assumed that since my friends wouldn't return my call for them as the years passed, I had to move on. I didn't feel like I was… _wanted_ anymore." The word left her quivering lips in a saddened manner, and Jareth immediately took in the sight of a much less spirited Sarah, the shadow of her former self. She was neither relentless in her will, nor aiming to defy his claims that it was not entirely his fault that she was here in the first place. Sarah was, in short terms, emotionally dead to him, but he couldn't show his need to comfort and admire her. His affections towards Sarah Williams were utterly fruitless to his cause at the moment. For now, all that could be done to benefit Sarah's situation is to warn her.

"Sarah, there are things occurring in the Underground that are the reason as to why your life in the Above has been most disagreeable. I cannot explain at this moment, however. He may be watching us." Jareth's obvious disgust for the man that had Sarah under his watchful eye by sheer force shone through in the change of tone in his voice. Sarah looked around the room reflexively, thinking she could spot his face in the reflection of the mirrors. Oriyn hasn't given her any reason to suspect he was up to foul play thus far—he had courteously brought her into the comfort of his home, introduced her to a few members of his court, and given her the comfort of a fully furnished room without asking for anything from her in return. Sure, he had stolen her away from the Aboveground at the sight of Jareth urging her to come with him instead, not explaining any of Jareth's reasoning behind what Oriyn called a "kidnapping," but he promised in due time that she would receive the answers she desired. What gave her the right to trust either of them when Sarah was getting separate stories from the two kings?

"If he were watching us, Goblin King, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. I would be in a rather different dream, without you in it," she observed.

The comment stung him, but Jareth was so fixed on letting Sarah see it his way, that he ignored the urge to shoot a clever remark back at her.

"You would be surprised at what the Unseelie King is capable of."

"And you should trust that I can handle any danger that comes in my way," she shot at him. Her determination flared through those unusual green eyes he had always been captivated with, making him stifle back a smile of satisfaction that the old Sarah had not entirely left him. He found her drawing closer to him as their argument progressed, his breath sharply inhaling at how captivating she had become in a mere five years. Her waist thinned considerably, rounding over a set of hips supporting long and slim legs. Jareth couldn't deny that her breasts had grown satisfactorily, her creamy neck becoming longer and her face growing thinner, bringing out the subtle fullness of her lips and the height of her cheekbones. She appeared to him as a woman now, not a fifteen year old teenager full of raging hormones and angst. _Beautiful, but still so dangerous and cruel._ "Above all, you should be the one to know that, Goblin King."

"And you still aim to defy every warning I kindly give you. There's a reason he is the Unseelie King, Sarah. Your expertise on mythology should inform you well enough of that," he cleverly bit back. They were a little more than three feet from each other now, distracted so easily by the quarrel that neither had realized they were moving towards the other like magnets.

"You are both of the same race, which puts the two of you on equal footing telling me that I should not trust either one of you." She had herself guarded emotionally, putting an invisible wall up between herself and Jareth out of fear for what he could do to her, because she couldn't hold back the feeling that she _wanted _to trust him. "It wasn't my decision to get pulled from my life. I would love to know the reasoning behind all of this, but neither of you will muck up the courage to tell me."

Jareth put a hand against his face, taking in low, deep breaths to keep his temper under control. _This woman is so insufferable_. "You wouldn't like to hear the truth, Sarah. There are things you don't know about—"

"Yes, yes. I think I got that part about a billion times from Oriyn already. I haven't been threatened, mistreated, or challenged thus far by either of you… but everyone is hiding something from me. Honest to god I feel like I'm on a chessboard and both sides haven't moved yet! I haven't had a decent night's sleep in two days, I'm being held hostage against my will in a king's castle even though I'm not being treated as a one, and now I'm in a dream with another king who is leading the discussion absolutely nowhere. I thought coming back here would patch things up—I thought it meant my life would mean something again, and look where I ended up," she huffed. Jareth stood silent for a moment, taking in blow after blow of Sarah's pent up distress at the situation she is in. He smirked at their nearness now, resisting the urge to claim her lips with his own right then and there as she curiously looked up at him. A blush stained her cheeks beautifully once her thoughts wandered into the similar range of ideas he was having.

"I think we have reached an impassable point in our argument. I can do nothing to reclaim you from his palace, and I find I cannot convince you of how dangerous he can be when humans enter his realm. I only wish that you have enough sense of mind to rely on no one's word during your stay in the Underground." Jareth turned his back to Sarah, beginning to walk towards the door of his office; the exit to this dream world and a portal into the next. Sarah's hand reached out to grasp his arm before he could move any further.

"Jareth, wait." It was the first time his name left her lips on a whim, and he couldn't help but feel his chest tighten at the sound of it expiring from her mouth. He shifted to some extent in order to face her, staring expectantly. "I don't know who to believe when it comes to both of your motives… but I can take care of myself. I can figure this out without either of you telling me a thing. I'm sure of it." Sarah was perfectly sincere in her strength of mind as she watched Jareth's countenance change from disheartened to auspicious in a second.

Without thinking, the Goblin King leaned down as if to kiss her, his lips hovering an inch from hers. Sarah's breath hitched in her throat, and her eyes closed shut in the moment, waiting for him to ultimately close the gap between them. Their breaths were united as one in the silence of the room, the sentiments of both spilling into the heavy atmosphere like a fog. She _needed_ this as well as he. It had been so long since thoughts of him in this manner came to her mind, and she felt herself wanting it first hand from the Goblin King himself… wanting him. Though, in spite of these needs, Jareth pulled away, reaching for Sarah's hand and pressing his thin lips to her pale skin.

His final words reverberated in her mind for the remainder of her sleep, "Goodnight, Sarah, and remember."


End file.
